2014, 1–8, Early Online Bridging the continuum: Analysis of the alignment of undergraduate and postgraduate accreditation standards SUSAN E. ANDREW, ANNA OSWALD & KENT STOBART University of Alberta, Canada Abstract Several influential national/international bodies including The Bologna Accord, The Carnegie Foundation and The Future of Medical Education in Canada (FMEC) have called for increased coordination across the medical education continuum. FMEC recognizes accreditation as a ‘‘powerful lever’’ and encourages the alignment of undergraduate and postgraduate standards. The Carnegie Foundation includes a similar call for the creation of a more coherent accreditation system. As a first step, using the Canadian context, we present a methodological approach that assesses the example of how well LCME/CACMS undergraduate accreditation standards align with the Royal College of Physician and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) postgraduate training standards. We analyzed how closely the 132 LCME/CACMS Medical School accreditation standards aligned with the 155 post-graduate standards from the RCPSC accreditation General Standards (A and B). This comparative evaluation demonstrates that the standards do not align closely. Gaps, redundancies and key differences are highlighted. These results are the first step in understanding how accreditation needs to be adapted and re-aligned across the education continuum to provide consistent and coordinated training and these methods could easily be applied to other contexts and jurisdictions. Introduction Several influential national/international bodies including The Bologna Accord, The Carnegie Foundation and The Future of Medical Education in Canada (FMEC) have called for increased coordination across the medical education continuum (The European Higher Education Area 1999; Cooke et al. 2010; Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada 2012a, b). FMEC recognizes accreditation as a ‘‘powerful lever’’ and encourages the alignment of under- graduate and postgraduate standards (Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada 2012a). The Carnegie Foundation includes a similar call ‘‘that accrediting, certifying and licensing bodies together develop a coherent framework for the continuum of medical education and establish effective mechanisms to coordinate standards and resolve jurisdictional conflicts’’ (Cooke et al. 2010). The first step in this endeavor is to assess how well undergraduate and postgraduate accredit- ations standards align. Accreditation of professional education programs at academic institutions has been adopted as a widely accepted and valid process by which designated authorities review and evaluate a program using a specified set of standards to ensure that the minimum standards are met with the purpose to ensure and improve the quality of the program. Accreditation is an important process to determine if a program has (a) appropriate purposes (b) has the organization and resources to accomplish its purposes (c) can demonstrate that it is accomplishing its purposes and (d) gives reason to believe it will continue to deliver its purposes (WHO-WFME Task Force on Accreditation 2004). Practice points  While undergraduate (UME) and post-graduate (PME) medical education accreditation standards are focused on different areas of concern, the premises behind the continuum of medical training should suggest that thoughtful alignment of standards would improve medical education.  A similar structure and numbering system between accreditation systems would facilitate alignment and provide consistent language among faculty and stu- dents to improve program coherence.  The methods presented could be applied to many other jurisdictions interested in evaluating alignment of accreditation standards across the continuum of medical education in their context.  In this example we find less than 50% alignment between UME and PME accreditation standards.  There is a lot of work required to achieve more appropriate alignment in UME and PME accreditation standards. Correspondence: Susan E. Andrew, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, 1-128 Katz Group Centre, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E1, Canada. Tel: 780-492-8217; Fax: 780-492-1998; E-mail: susan.andrew@ualberta.ca ISSN 0142-159X print/ISSN 1466-187X online/14/000001–8 ß 2014 Informa UK Ltd. 1 DOI: 10.3109/0142159X.2014.910298 Med Teach Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by University of Alberta on 05/20/14 For personal use only.